THE WAY WE WERE

Years ago I worked in the student services office of a women's college. The administrative staff frequently planned conferences on "women's leadership." To me, these conferences were the equivalent of gathering to discuss penmanship. Empowering women was the constant theme, but empowering them for what? Leadership is a process through which something is made to happen. Should we empower Hitler, Stalin, and Mother Teresa alike? Increasingly, it seems, our citizens are engrossed by issues of form and only tangentially interested in those associated with content.

I contend, by the way, that this is the Achilles Heel of a lot of liberal ideology. Form over content is how we wound up in the mess we're currently in—where corporations have become people with individual rights while individuals are blasé about giving up rights. In discourse, the form/process (for instance, of discrimination) repeatedly overwhelms its content. Thus, we are assailed by assertions that women beating men is a societal ill equivalent to men beating women, or that black racism is as pernicious as white racism. I have previously discussed the fallacy of the latter assertion, so here I'll touch briefly on the irrationality of the former: While women do now and then murder husbands and boyfriends, statistically the problem is insignificant compared to that of men beating, torturing, and slaughtering wives and girlfriends—and those females reluctant to become or to remain wives and girlfriends.

Men kill their female intimate partners at about four times the rate that women kill their male intimate partners.

Several studies have confirmed that women’s physical violence towards intimate male partners is often in self-defense (DeKeseredy et al. 1997; Hamberger et al. 1994; Swan & Snow 2002, 301; Muelleman & Burgess 1998, 866)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence

Yesterday, while I was cooking and half-listening to the radio, I overheard a comment on the subject of education, something along the lines of "American high school students score 26^th [I think] among Western countries in mathematics proficiency" and somewhere around 29^th in science. But, the commentator said, there is a single area in which American students come in first: self-confidence.

When my children were tots, we parents were perennially urged by early childhood education experts to build the self-confidence of our offspring. My mother-in-law told a story on herself in this regard. Her son as a young boy was drawing pictures with a friend. Suddenly his friend crumpled his drawing and threw it vehemently into the wastebasket. "I hate it!" he said. "Take it to my mother," said her son. "She'll tell you it's good."

Our generation was obsessed with feeling good and with making our children feel good. In the Sunday New York Times Magazine, I read a quote that bears repeating: "Happiness is not a condition; it's a sensation." As parents, we sought happiness for our children as fervently as any cocaine addict in pursuit of his connection. For us, happiness was not only a condition; it was a mandatory condition. Happy outgoing children were the mark of good parenting. Shy, introspective children were the victims of inadequate genetic material.

As a result of parental indulgence, our children grew up believing in their entitlement and eventually in the entitlement of their children. Emaciated mothers could beg for nickels in bone-cutting cold, equally skinny children clinging to their legs, but loving, middle-class parents rushed past to get to the PlayStations and motorized scooters their little darlings required. No sacrifice was too great if it resulted in the illusion of happy, well-adjusted children. The trouble was that happy, well-adjusted children didn't necessarily grow up to be sensitive, caring adults. Sometimes they grew up to be selfish, callous business tycoons or conniving lawyers or ne'er-do-wells living off the proceeds of the labor of someone else. Having been continually commended and rewarded for doing nothing, they developed a grossly inflated sense of their own worth.

And so we see, in our society confidence blooms in inverse proportion to competence. The more that Americans arrive at poor judgments—about leaders, about security vs. civil liberties, about health care and war, about the order of our priorities—the more positive we become of the superiority of our positions. Fox News is nothing if not supremely arrogant about its heinous politics and Fox News is the ultimate expression of American self-congratulatory pomposity--and, worst of all, insensitivity.

It's inevitable, I suppose, that as we age, we regard history as enfolding all that's valuable and the future as little more than threatening. Thus, curmudgeons pontificate about the end of morality and decency and—yes—competency. Yet as I board the subway and am shoved aside by people thirty and forty years my junior, I can't help but recall my mother and the mothers of my friends slapping us for forgetting to say "Mr." or "Mrs." to our elders. I don't advocate that sort of abuse; I merely reflect on what's been lost since that treatment of children came to be correctly seen as abuse. We've grown more casual and there's plenty to celebrate in becoming more casual.

But having loosened the grip of mindless obedience to our so-called superiors, perhaps it's time to re-examine the notion that children should be congratulated when they don't do anything special. And perhaps it's time to begin once again to demand excellence—from our representatives, from our peers, from the products we purchase and the companies that service them, and even from our children.

"We have met the enemy and he is us" --Pogo

As an atheist, I'm loath to defend any religion, being convinced that three-quarters of the misery on our planet can be traced to one and/or the other of two sources: religion and greed. Chalk up most of humanity's remaining hardships to that heartless woman, Mother Nature.

But, because I'm an atheist, I feel obliged to defend Islam against media attacks, simply because my faith lies in reason. If my emotions roil when I board a plane occupied by men in Muslim garb (like the faint-hearted Juan Williams), my intellect gives me a dope slap, reminding me that the media's favorite expression, "Islamic terrorist," sets up a false equivalence. Despite the inane pundits peppering us with incendiary nonsense, Islam and terrorism are no more inextricably linked than are "lunatic Christian fringe" and Presbyterian. Wouldn't it be lovely if we lived in a rational world in which a psychotic terrorist would be called—drum roll, please—a psychotic terrorist?

The most salient point about these terrorists is not that they are loony enough to imagine Allah endorses them, but that they are loony. (At an amateur theater production last night, I read one bio in which the actress thanked "God for giving me this opportunity." Frankly, I don't think God's busy schedule permits such attention to detail. Delusional thinking and piety, unlike Islam and terror, too often do appear inextricably linked.)

I reflect on the violence and intimidation perpetrated by the United States military in pursuit of its political goals (the definition of terrorism): Drones over Pakistan villages. Rewards paid for identifying personal enemies as terrorists (see Taxi to the Dark Side). Torture. The strafing of children whose innocent parents are subsequently maligned by their murderers for putting their offspring in harm's way: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/apache-helicopters-kill-iraqi-civilians.

But the phrase "American terrorism" never makes an appearance in any newspaper, or television or radio broadcast. We accept American terrorism because we are terrified.

How many British civilians died at the hands of IRA terrorists? (We won't get into how many Irish were murdered by British soldiers during The Troubles—that's a separate issue.) But until Tony Blair courted George W. Bush—all through years of civic bombings, the citizens of London remained fairly composed compared to American hysterics. We gladly jettison our civil rights and liberties in exchange for the illusion of being kept safe. The irony is that our sacrifices and the huge sums (taxes) paid to fatten up incompetent agencies, official and non-official, have brought about a zero increase in our safety, despite the comforting bedtime stories the incompetent officials like to tell us.

This is in part because it just isn't possible to be safe. But it's also because Homeland Security doles out funds based on political clout, not on need:

. . . This ridiculous disparity extends even to Homeland Security funds, which ought to be targeted toward the most vulnerable areas—coastlines, big city landmarks, porous borders. But landlocked Wyoming, with exactly zero important strategic targets, merits $38.31 per capita in Homeland Security funds. New York state residents get a measly $5.47. (http://www.urbanarchipelago.com/)

In Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 911, Moore asserts there are two patrol troopers overseeing the impenetrability of 300 miles of Oregon Coast. (http://fahrenheit_fact.blogspot.com/) But still we stand in line at the airport, removing our shoes and our coats, sheep-like, because it makes us feel safer although, in fact, it does not make us safer. Consider the following two points:

In the two years following 9/11, traffic fatalities climbed an additional 2,300, almost as many deaths as were incurred in the World Trade Center, because Americans were afraid to get on a plane, or possibly put off by long lines. (http://money.usnews.com/money/business-economy/articles/2010/01/11/what-airport-security-costs-you.html)

Those of us who do stand in interminable lines imagine the added security will prevent a bomb from destroying our plane, as the cargo compartment beneath our seats fills with items that have not been checked for explosives. (http://www.ndtv.com/article/world/explosives-in-cargo-renew-debate-on-screening-63359)

The terrorism Americans need to fear is state terror, which seeks to short-circuit our reason. Consider the suspension of habeas corpus, the legalization of torture, and the government's right to incarcerate, even a citizen, for years without charges or legal representation--anyone deemed an "enemy combatant" (Google Jose Padilla, rendered insane by years of state terror). Stephen Colbert encourages us to "Keep Fear Alive." Since the turn of the 19^th into the 20^th century, we have been able to depend on our politicians to do just that.

We have been keeping fear alive in this country for a very long time. It might be time to revisit the ideology on which our nation supposedly founded itself: the commitment to liberty.

Bridge for Sale

Keith Olbermann was "test-fired" the other day. The reaction from progressives—swift and vehement—squashed any hope G.E. (Olbermann's current employer) and Comcast (Olbermann's pending employer) had of quietly getting rid of him. Meanwhile, the red herring of an "opinionator" lacking objectivity grabbed the mainstream press's weaselly imagination in a flurry of stories—some admittedly conceding, albeit in passing, that Fox News "broadcasters" routinely donate to political candidates and causes.

Even if Olbermann weren't an open purveyor of his own viewpoint—which he most certainly is—his politics could no more be prevented from filtering what he says than an infusion of dye could be isolated from water merely by asking it to clarify itself. This applies not just to Olbermann but to everyone who delivers information to the public. It is delusional to imagine that what we see and read represents an objective view of the world. Yet the news stories I've read about Olbermann's "indefinite suspension" stressed the importance of a commitment to objectivity among broadcasters. What could be more amusing?

In the first place, open any newspaper and count the number of stories printed there. Do those stories represent everything that happened in the world on the previous day? Clearly not. Therefore, somebody had to decide, yes, we'll print this and no, we won't print that. Of course, we're told that this decision is made objectively—on the basis of what? News-worthiness? Okay. So that means, print everything people want to read. How objective is that? No, you say. It's everything of importance that happens. And I say, important to whom? The very word "important" constitutes a subjective judgment.

In the process of writing the story, a reporter chooses which facts to present and which to leave out. His editor further excludes details. When the news reaches the viewer/reader, it has been excised, massaged, expurgated—in short, made "fit to print". What it has never been is objective.

In part, this is because objectivity per se does not exist. We each occupy demographic categories that limit what we know and understand. The rich don't really comprehend all the dilemmas faced by those who are poor. The powerful don't understand the weakness of those who have always been powerless. Self-confident, successful, financially secure women, physically attractive and raised in loving homes, are mystified by women who submit to spousal abuse. Whites whose parents put them through university are oblivious to the constricted choices facing a young black man brought up in a ghetto apartment.

Circumstance (not objectivity) shapes us. But secondarily, without a point of view, no one can function, and that certainly includes news agencies. Without subjectivity, we can't choose which clothes to wear, what food to eat, not even what form of transportation to take, and we couldn't decide which news source to trust. In fact, without a viewpoint, none of us would bother to get out of bed.

Objectivity should not be represented as an absolute. It's a non-achievable goal. We move toward it as long as we remain conscious that it persistently eludes us. Those who insist they are objective are the least capable of perceiving and thereby minimizing the influence of their subjectivity.

But the mainstream media insists on maintaining its conceit of objectivity without doing more than placing a fig leaf over its commitments to interests at odds with those of the majority of Americans. How objectively has it covered, for example, this merger between Comcast and NBC? According to Susan Crawford, writing in the Sacramento Bee, not very:

There's been very little press coverage of the merger. It should be getting more attention. Seventy-five percent to 85 percent of Americans will soon have only one choice for video-quality high-speed communications, and it will be their local cable monopoly. http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/12/3020465/comcast-nbc-merger-is-about-money.html

The pipelines through which information travels are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. Every day more newspapers quietly disappear or succumb to buyouts by the likes of Rupert Murdoch. Yet this erosion of a key foundation of our democracy has been little reported in our "objective" press.

How frightening is it that what we read and hear will be shaped or suppressed by a small group of elites? GE, which currently owns MSNBC, contributed more than $2,000,000 to political candidates in 2010, most of that coming from the company's political action committee. (The Supreme Court has declared the destination of those funds need not be disclosed.) Olbermann, on the other hand, was chastised for donating $7,200 to three Democrats (http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4192).

If you believe G.E.'s political opinions are irrelevant to its subsidiaries, such as MSNBC, I have a bridge I think might interest you—for an excellent price.